Shen girls basketball falls to BC, 49-45

GUILDERLAND, N.Y. >> Some losses are easier to take than others. The game that a team comes up short and there isn’t a day scheduled to get back into the gym and fix the errors is one of the hardest.

A contest that will be the final time you coach eight of your seniors can leave any coach speechless, but Shenendehowa Coach Joe Murphy found the words to describe the disappointment in his Plainsmen’s 49-45 loss to Bethlehem at Guilderland High Monday night.

“We didn’t hit shots, we missed too many shots early on, they outplayed us 100 percent, give credit to (Molly) Kirby and Tess Hughes who took over at times in the game,” Joe Murphy said. “Four kids scored the basketball; I would sign up for that every day. Forty-five points isn’t going to cut it against a team like Bethlehem.”

The Eagles saw all four players in double-digits, led by Molly Kirby’s 17-point night followed Julianna Okoniewski’s 12. Tessa Hughes and Maggie Kirby each chipped in 10.

The Plainsmen were led by St. Francis-PA-bound Alexandra Tudor with 17 points, but Lemoyne-bound Cameron Tooley was limited to just 10 points and without a three-pointer on the night.

“You have to credit Bethlehem, they hit shots when they needed to, got to the foul line when they needed to and they hit their free throws,” Murphy said. “The other game against Saratoga they missed them down the stretch, tonight I think they missed one down the stretch.”

Two weeks ago Murphy was honored after the preliminary game with a surprise banner by the Shenendehowa administration and the booster club to celebrate his 100th coaching win earlier in the year. A majority of those wins came with the help of the eight seniors that will walk across the stage in June at graduation.

“Some of these kids, I had Alex Tudor for five, six years almost, Cam Tooley for three, you can’t replace them,” Murphy said. “Julia Ryan was the unspoken leader of our team, she was awesome, and it’s going to be tough not to be able to coach these kids.

“I feel like I let them down today, they battled every minute, they played as hard as they possibly could tonight and I just really feel bad for those kids.”

The break for the Eagles is much shorter, facing Colonie Saturday afternoon in the Class AA championship game 2:30 p.m. at Hudson Valley Community College.

“At this point of the year teams are what they are and I know that might sound stupid, but we all know what we do well, we all know what our weaknesses are,” Bethlehem coach Matthew Kirby said. “Right now it’s just fine tuning and keeping them in a rhythm and keeps everyone consistent with the things that we do and hopefully on Saturday we’re the more consistent team.”

The work is not done for the Plainsmen either as Murphy had a few words for next year’s starters and role players.

“I give that same speech every year at the end of the year, I apologize to the seniors and then I tell the underclassmen ‘Know this feeling, it sucks, but you have to use this feeling to motivate you in the off-season and work on your game and remember this,” Murphy said. “The last time we lost to Bethlehem in the finals I posted that picture up in my coaching office, it’s still there to remind us how close we were that one year and I’ll hand out copies of the score again to these guys and say remember this score.

“It’s going got be ingrained into our head hopefully the whole off-season so when they’re doing open gyms or doing off-season workouts, they do that extra sprint, they take those extra shots after practice and they learn from this sot that feeling doesn’t happen to them again.”